Red carpet classy: This year’s Boomtown Fest is a must-see

We hope not, because when it comes to this year’s Boomtown Film and Music Festival, we’re willing to say it in advance. For the last few weeks, each band and film announcement has had us practically salivating at the South by Southwest-inspired festival’s potential now that it’s in its fifth year.

This year, organizers Bryan Lee and Christopher Dombrosky took a more proactive approach to the fest’s film programming: They went to festivals across the state and picked their favorites from each to bring back to Beaumont.

“I think it’s the strongest lineup of feature films we’ve ever had,” Dombrosky said. “Bryan and I went to other festivals and scouted around and found films to invite, rather than just waiting to see what people entered into the contest crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.”

And that effort paid off — from a feature film cast with stars from “Friday Night Lights” and “The Wire” to a Robert Redford-narrated five-minute documentary about a Port Arthur environmentalist, this year’s schedule is rock-solid and filled with curious shorts, documentaries and feature films. There are movies from Italy, Russia, Israel, Lithuania, France and plenty from Texas, naturally.

“The ones that I’m most excited about are a comedy called ‘Austin High’ and a documentary

called ‘Rainbows End,’” Dombrosky said. “These are two films that I actually happen to have discovered at the Austin Film Festival. ‘Austin High’ was the best thing that I saw during the entire festival this past year and ‘Rainbows End’ was the best thing I saw at the festival before that.”

The music portion of this year’s fest features a wide variety of local talent — Motown and doo-wop from Mad Maude & the Hatters, “folktronica” from The Statement, pop punk from Dear You and driving rock from Burgundy Strut and We Were Wolves — but we’re pretty impressed at the fest’s headliner Ringo Deathstarr, which recently toured Europe and the U.K. with the Smashing Pumpkins.

And for the first time, the festival will have a red carpet to open the weekend.

“The idea for the red carpet came about in one of our meetings because of the festival’s close timing to the Oscars,” Lee said. “We never had a red carpet opening in the past and we thought it would be something fun and interesting for festival-goers.”

With all the pieces combined, we’re inclined to agree with organizers’ excitement about this year’s festival.

“This year’s fest is definitely one of our best ones to date,” Lee said. “I think with the help of added volunteers, sponsors, a strong film and music lineup, there’s no sign of us going away.”

To give you a taste of what’s to come, we picked a few bands and films we’re particularly excited to check out this weekend. For more info, head to cineddiction.com/boomtownfestival.

Photo courtesy of Ringo Deathstarr

Ringo DeathstarrCheck it out: Midnight Friday at Tequila Rok

Austin band Ringo Deathstarr got its start in Beaumont in 2005 but this band didn’t stick around here long. The shoegaze-tinged band — famous for its sweeping soundscapes with crunchy guitar riffs and sweet, undulating sounds that just beg to be fallen into face-first — just wrapped up a batch of overseas tour dates opening for the Smashing Pumpkins but lucky for us, Ringo Deathstarr is headlining this weekend’s festival.

The band will close out an excellent evening of local and not-so-local acts at Tequila Rok on Friday night and we’re definitely looking forward to this set.

The ManicheanCheck it out: 10 p.m. Friday at Tequila Rok

The Manichean. Photo courtesy of the band

Nostalgic, etherial Houston band The Manichean sums its sound up pretty well in its bio: Overly dramatic narrative rock. It’s kind of an indie rock soundtrack for your whole existence, with sweeping, dramatic moments that make you start recalling fond, sunlit memories in slow motion.

It’s beautiful and sweet and makes you want to hug stuff, or cry, depending on where your head’s at that day. Even when there are few words, these songs take you on a narrative journey in what feels like a predetermined storyline set entirely by tone and rhythm. There’s such attention to space and detail in this band’s sound that The Manichean’s 22 minute EP “Whispers” took more than a year to make.

There are plenty of acts that will rock your face off during the festival. Take a break from the face-melting and sink into a sea of The Manichean’s heavenly, drifting, nostalgic storytelling sounds.

Bang Bangz. Photo courtesy of the band

Bang BangzCheck it out: 9 p.m. Friday at Tequila Rok

Houston trio Bang Bangz — featuring Mario Rodriguez of Tax the Wolf, one of last year’s Boomtown bands — is bringing its quirky, fun sound to the Tequila Rok stage Friday night. This band is relatively new on the scene but we dig Bang Bangz’ electronica-tinged indie rock that somehow feels upbeat and mellow at the same time.

The band just put out its debut eight-track E.P., which you can check out at bangbangzz.com. If you dug Tax the Wolf last year, this band is kind of like a spacier, electronic offshoot of what has become one of our favorite Houston bands.

Jason Miller of The Statement. Photo courtesy of the band's Facebook page

The StatementCheck it out: 8 p.m. Saturday at The Gig

We’ve always been big fans of Jason Miller, co-host of 91.3 KVLU’s weekly electronica-heavy show The Space Capsule, but this weekend we’ll get to see another side of Miller: His music-makin’ side.

The Statement blends electronica with alt folk, chillwave and experimental sounds. It’s a really fun and curious romp through an area melding an awful lot of music styles we dig.

“Searching for Sonny”Check it out: 8 p.m. Friday at the Dishman or 1 p.m. Saturday at the Geology Building

An official selection in the 2011 Austin Film Festival, this indie comedy/mystery is full of familiar faces: Minka Kelly (“Friday Night Lights”), Jason Dohring (“Veronica Mars”), Masi Oka (“Heroes”), Michael Hogan (“Battlestar Gallactica”) and Clarke Peters (“The Wire”) are a few in this star-studded (well, for a small indie film fest, anyway) cast.

This light-hearted romp features gorgeous cinematography and a group of reunited friends who find themselves the suspects in a murder that seems eerily similar to a play they performed in high school.

“Austin High”Check it out: 8 p.m. Saturday at the Dishman

It’s not an indie film fest without some stoner humor, and Texas film “Austin High” is bringin’ it this weekend.

In this comedy filmed in Austin, a group of high school stoners grow up to become faculty at their alma mater. The threat of a city-wide crackdown on marijuana leads the gang on an adventure around Austin where they meet very a colorful (and presumably very high) cast of characters.

“Lost and Found”Check it out: 8 p.m. Friday at the Rothwell Recital Hall

This doc is a striking and beautiful get for our little hometown film fest. The film centers around three boxes, containing roughly 20,000 negatives that reveal surfing’s history from 1972 to 1993, found at the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena, Ca. in 2007.

Director Doug Walker traveled the country for three years interviewing surfers and photographers who lived the era, capturing epic surf tales that might have been lost had it not been for that one epic market find.

“My Toxic Reality”Check it out: 6 p.m. Friday at the Dishman Art Museum or noon Saturday at the Geology Building

Narrated by Robert Redford, this five minute documentary chronicles environmental activist Hilton Kelley’s decade-long fight to help Port Arthur environmentally and economically.

The movie is based on a spoken word piece Kelley wrote about Port Arthur. Come check out this short about the man Oprah called the “Avenging Angel.” If nothing else, who can resist hearing Robert Redford talk about Port Arthur for five minutes?